This Could be a Huge Mistake

Think about the biggest mistake you've ever made. Maybe you failed your Chemistry final two days before College graduation and now you have to go back to school for another whole semester.  Or prom night in High School, when you let things go a little too far with your date and you find out there is a baby on the way. It might even be an impulsive decision to take a job 3,000 miles away from home and once you get there, they decide not to hire you. Perhaps it is deciding to divorce your spouse of 20 years. 

Life is all about learning. When you are born, you don't automatically know the alphabet and how each letter sounds and how to spell. You have to learn. Part of learning is making mistakes. That is why on the end of each pencil, there is an eraser. That is there to help you fix your mistakes. One of the best pieces of advice I give kids is that its ok to make mistakes. When they try to pour their own milk on their cereal and the gallon is too heavy for them, you end up with flooded kitchen of milk. In those moments it is very easy to raise your voice or put blame on the child that did it. In times like this, we need to reassure the child and ourselves that mistakes are ok as long as we learn from them. 

If we learn from our mistakes, the mistakes we made will turn into lessons. Through life our lessons will turn into our story. Your story is something that no one else can write except for you and God. Your story is important and God isn't done writing your story yet. In the future there will be more mistakes and some of them will be bigger than others. 

In two days, I might be making the biggest mistake of my life. Moving 1,200 miles from home, without a job, and attending a school I've never visited might not be the smartest decision. If this turns into a mistake, it will be the greatest lesson ever. This mistake will be part of my story for the rest of my life. Turn your mistakes into lessons and let the lessons help you tell your story.